About Me

If I can just give to the world more than I take from it, I will be a very happy man. For there is no greater joy in life than to give.
Motto : Live, Laugh and Love.
You can follow me on Twitter too . My handle is @Raja_Sw.

Saturday, November 15, 2014

This post was written on 24th May 2011. The 2011 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket tournament was on then.

For some reason, this post never got posted on my blog. Maybe it was just some lazy writing from me that was never meant for public consumption. I sometimes do that - just dump my thoughts into a Word document (or an e-mail to myself) to get them out of my system and on record somewhere.

Anyway, when I was sorting out old files on my computer, I came across this write-up which I had long since forgotten about.

It is naturally somewhat dated, seeing as it was written in 2011. But I still had a bit of a chuckle, reading it all over again. Am therefore sharing it here on the blog.

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*DISCLAIMER:
This is not a criticism of the IPL. There’s much more to the IPL than just a
casual conversation between two persons, so I would request the reader not to
read too much into this. *

One of the
many things I enjoy, while in India, is watching TV with my mom. It is not about what we watch, but just the
fact that we’re watching TV together. My mom watches only a few TV programmes and,
though they wouldn’t be my first-choice shows otherwise, I do like to
watch them along with her.

So here
we are, watching one of her programmes today and it is about 8.20 p.m. The IPL
play-off game between Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) and Chennai Super Kings
(CSK) is underway and is being telecast on SetMax. I want to check out the
scores quickly and ideally watch the game, rather than the current programme.
My mom, ever-obliging, has no problem with my changing the channel.

So here we
are, watching the game. I am feeling somewhat guilty for hijacking my mom’s
programme. My mom is not at all into cricket - though she surprised me a few days
ago with an absolute googly.

It was
Shane Warne’s last IPL game and, just for conversation, I asked her whether
she’d heard of Warne.

“Oh yes, he’s a famous Australian cricketer,
isn’t he?”

I was stunned.

“Wow, I never expected you to know.”

"Oh, he’s been playing for a long time. His brother also was very good, wasn’t he?”

After a moment of surprise, I realized she’d got confused. I corrected her.

“That was
Steve Waugh. And his brother Mark Waugh.”

“Maybe. But I’ve also heard
the name Warne”.

I was very impressed.

"Well, this is Warne’s last game
today. In the IPL”.

My mom
knows the IPL. I mean, she’s heard of it. It's difficult for anybody who
watches TV in India NOT to be have heard of the IPL. A few days ago, she
stunned me, when, after dinner, she asked me

“So is there another IPL game today? It is 20 overs
per team, isn’t it?”

I was taken aback.
I knew that she wasn’t interested in the cricket as such. Clearly her interest was more
because IPL was clashing with her TV programmes.

Anyway, so
here we are today, watching the IPL game
instead of my mom’s preferred TV programme.

In the hope
of getting my mom slightly interested in the game (the guilt was beginning to
get to me!), I embarked on a rather feeble line of channel-change justification
. Here is how our conversation went.

Me: It’s Bangalore vs Chennai. (Hmm..maybe my mom gets interested. After all, she has a stake in both cities).

Mom: (just
as the camera zooms in on Doug Bollinger bowling): He does not look like he's from Chennai. Or from Bangalore. In fact, he does not even look Indian.

Me: He’s
not. He’s an Australian. In the IPL, each team is allowed to have four foreign
players.

Mom:
(looking puzzled) Oh, ok. So you mean the rest are from Chennai and Bangalore?

Me:
(after a pause): Hmm..not really.

Mom's looking even more puzzled now, so I decide to explain.

Me:
Though the teams are called Bangalore and Chennai, they’re allowed to have any
players from all over the world. They can have four foreigners in the team, the
remaining players have to be Indians. But they don’t have to belong to Chennai
or Bangalore as such.

Mom:
(now at a new level of being confused) : But you said it is Bangalore vs Chennai.
Based on what are you saying this?

Me: (having
to think now): The thing is, Mom, it has to do with franchise and ownership.

Mom:
(amazingly still hanging in there): I don’t get it.

Me:
(thinking hard, how to explain this in lay terms): You know India Cements in
Chennai, right?

Mom: Yes.

Me: And
you know Mallya here in Bangalore, right?

Mom: Yes.

Me: Well,
the owner of India Cements has bought a cricket team in the name of
Chennai. And Mallya has bought a cricket
team in the name of Bangalore. Their teams are playing against each other today.

Mom: Oh, it is not really Bangaloreans and
Chennai-ites? Anybody can play?

Me: There
are a few from Bangalore and Chennai but that’s not the main point here.

Mom: How
can you call it Bangalore vs Chennai if you don’t have Bangaloreans playing against
Chennai-ites?

Me: This
is not like playing for your country, Mom. You cannot play for India if you are
not an Indian. This is not like that. In fact, you have the same type of thing
in football also.